Posthumous humanity : a study of phantoms / by Adolphe d' Assier ; translated and annotated by Henry S. Olcott ; to which is added an appendix, shewing the popular beliefs current in India respecting the post-mortem vicissitudes of the human entity.

  • Assier, Adolphe d', 1827-1889.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Posthumous humanity : a study of phantoms / by Adolphe d' Assier ; translated and annotated by Henry S. Olcott ; to which is added an appendix, shewing the popular beliefs current in India respecting the post-mortem vicissitudes of the human entity. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    '' The interest of this compilation is naturally not to be compared to that aroused by the ever-fresh 'Thousand and One Nights ;' but it has had high reputation among particular admirers, and the gentleman to whom we are indebted for this English version—apparently the most complete in any lan- guage of Western Europe—merits the thanks of the reading public for the- work performed.—A th enceum. About 500 pages, crown 8vo., doth. Price 10s. 6d. The History of the Forty Vezirs; OK, T/?e Story of the Forty Morns and Eves, Written in Turkish by Shetkh-Zada, and now done into English by E. J. W. GiBB, M.II.A.S. A delightful addition to the wealth of Oriental stories available to English readers is ' The History of the Forty Vezirs ' (Redway), done into English by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb, from the Turkish of Sheykh-Zada. The collection com- prises 112 stories. To the forty told by the Lady and those of the forty Vezirs, Mr. Gibb has added four from Belletete, twenty from a MS. in the India Ofl&ce, six from Dr. Behrnauer's translation, and two from a MS. recently purchased by Mr. Quaritch. The results of collation are admirally summarised in a comparative table that analyses the contents of the various texts. In the preface Mr. Gibb deals with the bibliogi^aphy of the French and German ver- sions, and indicates some of the more interesting parallels suggested by those old stories in the ' Gesta Romanorum,' the ' Decameron,' the ' Thousand and One Nights,' the ' Mabinogion,' and other treasures of old-world fable. In short, Mr. Gibb has considerately done everything to help the reader to an intelligent appreciation of this charming book.—Saturday Review. '' In my opinion the version is definite and final. The style is light and pleasant, with the absolutely necessary flavour of quaintness ; and the notes, though short and few, are sufficient and satisfactory. Mr. Gibb does not write only ad clerum ; and thus he has been obliged to ' leave in the obscurity of an Eastern language' three whole tales (pp. 353, 366, and 399), No. 2 being ex- ceedingly witty and fescennine. He has the good sense, when he supplants a broad joke by a banal English phrase, to subjoin in a note the original Turkish (pp. 109, 140, 199, 215, and 382). Yet some of the novelle are highly spiced enough : see the amorous princess in the Eleventh Wazir's story (pp. 381-3); and the truly Turkish and unspeakable version of modest iEsop's ' Country- man and his Son.' Of the less Milesian I would especially commend the story of the Venus-star and the magical angels, Harut and Marut (p. 167) ; the exp'anation of the proverb, 'Take counsel of the cap that is on thy head ' (p. 362), and the Thirty-seventh Wazir's tale, showing why ' men have beaten their wives since the days of Saint Adam ' (p. 349).—Sir Richard F. BuetoNj in The Academy.